WASHINGTON, DC – A meeting that had been called for Tuesday Jan 25 by two top Ethiopian ruling party officials was cancelled after human rights activists warned to protest, a source said.
The venue of the meeting was Willard, a luxury hotel in downtown DC which said the cancellation was effected as a show of respect for all parties concerned.
Speaking on the phone, human rights activist Tamagne Beyene said Seyoum Mesfin and Girma Birru had invited “all Ethiopians” to attend the meeting. But activists quickly spread the word that they should meet at the hotel and protest against the presence of two top notch officials of the regime that faces charges of crimes against humanity and genocide. “When we got there, we learned that the hotel had already cancelled the meeting,” Tamagne said.
“The two were testing our patience and resilience. And they should have learned the lesson by now,” the activist said.
Seyoum Mesfin, a longtime foreign minister now deployed as ambassador to Beijing, and Girma Biru, a former Trade and Industry minister now ambassador to Washington, DC are senior members of the Meles Zenawi ruling party that has been in power since 1991.
Since 2005 when the regime killed at least 193 civilians who took to the streets protesting an electoral fraud, the ruling party has consolidated its grip on power by decreeing draconian laws.
Ethiopians sag beneath a mountain of sordid poverty, high unemployment rates and generally live in an environment of fear and hopelessness.
Some political pundits say current uprisings rocking north African nations like Tunisia and Egypt may spill over into desperate socities like Ethiopia.
But others are more cautious.
Some observers on the skeptical side express doubts that Tunisia-style uprisings may immediately surface in Ethiopia for two reasons: unity remains elusive among the opposition, and the presence of a Stalinist regime that has lived over the rule of law, and wouldn’t hesitate to commit massacres to cling to power.
